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Scalloped Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a buttered breadcrumb and cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, then clip it into neat clusters.

  2. Pack the clusters with the stems facing downward in a buttered baking dish.

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs with melted butter and cream to form a soft paste.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then bind it with the beaten egg.

  3. Spread the mixture over the cauliflower.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. Serve in the same dish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cauliflower + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the tender base that the topping is spread over.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the soft topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Cream
Moistens the bread crumbs into a soft paste.
Egg
Binds the topping so it holds together when baked.

The step that matters

Spread the mixture over the cauliflower. The topping should be spread evenly and not packed too thickly, so the heat reaches the cauliflower and the topping bakes through and browns evenly rather than staying soft underneath.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, cream, pepper, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, cream, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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